tams' little corner of the world: 2007

Monday, December 31, 2007

365 Days of Colour

One of my New Years resolutions is to do something creative everyday. I am trying to convince myself that at the very least I can find an image that catches my eye and take the few seconds to document it. Hopefully I will also find the time to be creating as well and will document those things. This is the first photo in my new flickr group: 365 Days of Colour. Please feel free to join me!

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Boxing Day

Lovely not to have to work today. Here are some images of Christmas at our house this year.

Recycled Fur Santa

Santas

Leeks Au Gratin

Creme Brulee for dessert

Homemade Felt Ornament

Relaxing with Boo Sadley

My Comfy new Pjs!

Chases custom shirt!

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Merry Christmas!!!

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Student Cakes - Course One

Lesson Two - the Rainbow cake

Lesson Three - Figure piping

Lesson Four - Roses

Great work Girls!!!!

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Todays Jewelery - Frothy

Frothy Silver Necklace $250 16"

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Todays Jewellery - Quatre foil

Large Quatre foil Earrings with peacock freshwater pearl $45

Quatre foil Pendant. $55 - SOLD

Mini Quatre foil Earrings $35 - SOLD

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Slack - Me

I have been terribly slack about posting lately. Having three jobs will do that. I plan to post some student pictures from my cake decorating classes SOON.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Thieving Makes me so Mad

An Update: Last night my market bag was stolen from Mum's car in her garage. It included all my inventory plus tools and supplies - both handmade and boughten. So between this and the owner of Flirt ( which she closed) not returning my stock (retail value: $1140), I have nothing as far as my jewellery practice is concerned.
Soooooooo I may not be at the market for a bit and I am really not sure what I'll do. There were some custom orders that I finished up this week and the part that makes me feel the worst is that those items are gone too. My sincerest apologies to those who entrusted me with their beads or had special requests on the way.
.........................argh

Here are some recent examples in case you see them on the street....

Monday, October 15, 2007

Pumpkin Pie

I know Thanksgiving is over, but I can't resist posting a picture of the pumpkin pie I made as it turned out so nicely. There is a cream cheese layer under the pumpkin and pecan/hazelnut praline for the topping.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Wedding Favour Cookies

When an old friend - whom I met working at Crabtree - called and said she was coming back to Halifax to get married and wondered if I would make her cake, I was thrilled. My first wedding cake!!! Too bad the reception was at Saege which being owned by Scanway doesn't allow outside cakes.....Alison suggested cookies. I love making cookies so I was still thrilled. Her colours were fall purples and sages like you would see in hydrangeas at this time of year. I made 150 royal icing hydrangea blossoms in sage, purple and pale pink. The flooding colour I did in an ivory and I think they turned out pretty well. These pictures are of the seconds as I didn't have time to photograph the real ones. Making things for weddings is so much fun - it is one time when you can be unapologetically 'girly'.

The sugar cookie recipe is from Martha and bakes perfectly every time and is just the right amount of sweet.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Metal Arts Guild: Evening at the Art Gallery

Last night was a blast - Myself and two guild members, Emilie and Anne, were in charge of food for the event. My goal was to get the function to look as though it was professionally catered. That meaning that every dish was garnished within an inch of its life and also that I made as showy a cake as I could come up with.

bottom tier: chocolate cake with coffee buttercream and dark chocolate almond ganache.

top tier: white cake with cannoli filling and coffee buttercream

Emilie!

Anne!

Just part of the spread

Now maybe next year I'll actually have time to make a piece to submit to the competition.......

Monday, September 17, 2007

New Chain - Leaf

These items are available at Amazing Clayworks in Stratford, Ontario

Sterling silver, Turquoise, Smoky Quartz and Olive Jade.

Turquoise and Smoky Quartz.

Friday, September 07, 2007

Baby Shower Goodies

My friend Shannon requested cookies and a cake for a baby shower she was hosting. Here is what I came up with. The cake is a yellow sponge cake with lemon curd ( my favourite filling) and buttercream icing. I really didn't want to use fondant, but it was so humid that the butter in the icing was getting melty as I worked. Lesson number 1: One o'clock in the morning is not a good time to decorate cakes! Still need to work on lettering.....

Idea for decorating these comes from Peggy Porschen's Pretty Party Cakes

Vanilla sugar cookies with Royal Icing.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Earrings!

Double Ellipse Earrings with Chalcedony and Freshwater Pearls. $40

Double Aureola Earrings with Turquoise, Smoky Quartz and Freshwater Pearl. $40

Double Ellipse Earrings with Sponge Coral, Garnet and Olive Jade. $40

Double Ellipse Earrings with Smoky Quartz, Sponge Coral and Tigers Eye. $40 - SOLD

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Cakes!

This is my latest cake for my lovely friend Julia whose birthday is actually today. I still need to work on my lettering, I think I really cannot skip the piping gel for it. I was happy with the little flowers and the Bay leaves. It was so hot that day that I couldn't do the proper smoothing as the cake stayed sticky no matter what. I know that fondant is a good choice on a day like that, but I just couldn't bring myself to use it. One of these days I will try this famous 'Marshmallow' fondant I keep reading about that is supposed to taste good. As per usual, I used the Martha Stewart recipe for Lemon Curd to fill the cake. I think I'd like to try it with limes and then do a coconut cake. um.....breakfast.....